Noisey neighbours, friendly advice on what to do.

Zoe1345

Slinky said:

You mention mother shouting up the stairs, and doors banging. I'm wondering if the door banging is deliberate rather than accidental, as in the person banging the door trying to make some sort of point.

I feel for you. We live in a linked detached semi where ours and our neighbours garages are linked. Our garage back door swells in the damp and we have to slam it to shut it, and the up and over door is old and clangy. We have no internal door from the house as a route in and so anytime we go in the garage our neighbours will hear us. They have converted the back of their garage to a dining room with patio doors, and the front has much quieter doors than ours, so we rarely hear them. The previous occupant of our house was an elderly lady, so we probably make a lot more noise than her. Hopefully our noise levels will reduce as we plan to have an internal door installed, and new front and back garage doors. They've never said anything about us disturbing them.

That's good they haven't said anything, hopefully that means that you aren't bothering them, and your concern is you being a considerate neighbour! Garage up and overs are a nightmare - ours is horrendous for noise, luckily we have little need to ever go in there at night (and its in a block behind the houses anyway). 

I think in some instances it might be that the doors are being slammed on purpose (one raging fight at 2am consisted of "scream, scream scream" door slam. 2 minute silence. "scream scream scream". door slam... etc.) However thats not the case every night. Its every bathroom door, every bedroom door, the shower door, anytime anyone goes in or out. I imagine the kids have grown up with their parents being like and therefore the whole house is just used to slamming doors not shutting them (as well as running and stomping up stairs... not walking". I'm just very much hoping that someone with worse nocturnal habits than them (or actually an early riser would be good) moves in the other side so they can finally discover what its like. (Although unless that neighbour removes all the carpets and replaces with wooden floors and stairs, they won't get the full effect we do...) 

Zoe1345

hopeitwill said:

Zoe1345 said:

Shelldean said:

Zoe.
The thing is at 2am it should be quieter all around, so any noise made will sound louder.
For example at 2pm the stair stomping is somewhat softened by daily life, cars on the road planes in the sky etc. If you get my drift. A also your senses maybe heightened due to the anxiety.....waiting for the noise to start yet again?
[...]
I'm the same person  in the same house as I've always been. Yet I've perceived the neighbours differently.
And I did find the more I stressed the louder they seemed!!!

Absolutely not denying that of course, I am well aware that the relative quiet of 2am, compared to 2pm, will somewhat amplify noise. But, EVEN factoring this in, the noise level is disproportionate to that made during the day, and that made by other neighbours. The anxiety that I may begin to drift off to sleep at 2am, only to be woken with a jolt at 2:30 by someone crashing about or shouting, a common occurrence, does certainly hinder my ability to easily get off to sleep. Said anxiety is generally proven just though when the noise begins again!

I'd not argue your case has anything to do with you being the same person or perceiving them differently - it's that you have different neighbours, who's actions have different effects. The fact that a family could do all those every day things with you barely hearing them, and then another (smaller) family could do those things with such an astronomically different level of noise, I would argue is indication that the means by which they were going about those activities was not taking into account the level of noise they were making - and the fact that this continued after discussing it with them, means they are executing those activities with little concern for their neighbours. Your perception hasn't changed, the neighbours have.

hopeitwill said:

I really can't understand how people can say "just because it's not your routine at 2 am". Banging doors should not be anyone's routine at any time.

I can maybe understand the stomping, some people are stompers without realising they are, my partner being one too, and he is a petite guy. They would need to be warned about it.

And their shower door may need to be banged so it's closed properly. Or their doors. Then they would just need to be fixed. Those would be simple solutions than a change of behaviour though.

The stupid thing is we are 12 weeks into buying this house (we're renting normally) and I am only doing it because it's in an amazing area with prices going up all the time and it's so close to my OH's workplace. Otherwise, a detached house would be the best solution for people like us the "noise haters". For now I am going with "better the devil you know".

Agreed re: banging doors. We have a few hall cupboards that don't close easily, you have to slam them. If we open them at night/late, say after 10pm (which we do our utmost not to), we simply just push them a jar slowly, and don't fully shut them, otherwise it would massively disturb our neighbours (the quiet neighbours the other side). Some of our doors have loose hinges too, which means they can slam on occasion - again, we are aware, and at night, we are more conscious that we close them gently (the doors are all being changed soon - hence why they haven't been "fixed"). If their shower door needs to be slammed that hard to close it - they need to fix it (It also makes a horrendous grating sound - we think as they are pulling it closed, before the slam - which gets in your bones!)

We only settled for a terrace due to my need to commute into the city - we could only afford a "fixer upper" terrace, a semi-in a worse area where I'd have to bus it to the train station, or a flat. Part of me wishes we'd gone with the semi in a worse area and I'd just have had to deal with the added bit to the commute. My husbands business could really do with extra space - a garage, an outside workshop - it was all location really for us at the time. Detached for us next time 100%! 
 

In my mother tongue, we'd say "get the right neighbours rather than the right house". That really resonates with me.

We'd certainly have been happy here for a few more years if not for them. So it certainly resonates with me too.